Help And Healing For Parents Of Estranged Adult Children

No one expects their adult children to wash their hands of their parents, breaking all contact as if they never existed. How to make sense and move on from this very unfortunate situation.

I was given a copy of the book, Done With The Crying by Sheri McGregor, M.A., to read and write a review. The opinions that follow are my own.

When I was asked to read and review, Done With Crying, I have to admit that I was not familiar with the situation of where adult children will just out of the blue announce that they are through with their parents and don’t want any future contact with them. Apparently, this occurrence isn’t by children who were abused, abandoned, or shunned. It is done by children who for the most part, had been nurtured and loved their entire life by devoted parents.

My first reaction was, “Who would do this?” Apparently, according to the book, there are enough estranged adult children to make this a real issue that leave parents, especially mothers, distraught, confused, and lost.

What gives this book credibility is that the author, Sheri McGregor, knows firsthand about this situation: her adult son rejected her, her husband, and his four siblings, when he was in his twenties. It was devastating for all of them but especially for Sheri—the one who gave birth and her unconditional love and attention in raising her son. As she writes in the introduction, “I’m a loving parent like you. A mother who knows the pain of an adult child’s estrangement—the horrible shock that wrings you dry, triggers denial, blame, and even shame.”

In Done With Crying, McGregor has turned what she has learned and endured through this ordeal into a self-help book for other mothers who find themselves in this situation. She shares what she has researched, numerous interviews with mothers of estranged adult children, and her own experiences to provide ways to cope with the present and move on to a more productive future.

The book is also a workbook for the reader, giving concrete steps to journal, reflect, and create action steps to put the information to immediate use. This is the part I found especially valuable. It is one thing to read about the situation you are in and be told what can be done. How much more effective to be challenged to face real feelings and develop an individualized plan to meet those challenges head on.

Not only does McGregor encourage the reader to write down their thoughts as they go through the various exercises, she also suggests they read their responses out loud to stimulate the areas of the brain associated with language and speech, deactivating the areas of the brain associated with pain.

I found the book to well organized and very supportive of parents who are dealing with estranged adult children. It begins with explaining the situation and coming to terms with it, how to find support, and then best of all, how to move forward for a more productive and resilient life. While mothers and fathers will never be able to forget their children who consciously decided to leave them, McGregor gives parents hope for being able to move on and not be held emotional prisoners for the rest of their lives. Her final advice to the readers of her book, after they have faced their dilemma head on and have reflected in the workbook pages, is to “Look forward…let go of the bad and leave it behind…Reach for your life. Embrace it. There is sunlight ahead.”

That’s great encouragement not only for parents of estranged adult children but for anyone going through difficult trials in their life.

For more information about dealing with estranged adult children and Sheri McGregor’s work, visit her website.

Comments

This book was my salvation when our son rejected us just befor his wedding nearly two years ago.
The minute you start to read Sheri’s book you immediately identify with the emotions and the raw pain and hurt she describes not just as the author but as a mum who has walked the path before you, this is hugely important as the pain of estrangement is so similar to a close bereavement yet in some ways it is actually worse because your child has chosen this path and that evokes pain and emotions which in some way are worse than when someone close to You dies, most of us will have experienced bereavement but few of us actually have or will experience estrangement and all the rubbish which goes with that.
It is evident from Sheri’s forum for Rejected Parents that the many parents on there who have been through this experience feel the same way albeit the individual circumstances of estrangement might be different.
Sheri has done a fantastic job in hi lighting this issue and should be recognised for her role in this, but also it is really time this situation was put out more fully into the public domain as I am convinced this is merely the tip of the iceberg, I came across Sheri’s book only by chance but I feel for the many parents out there who are still struggling alone.

Sheri’s book helped me not only come to terms with being abandoned last year by my eldest son (a successful, happily married man in his forties), but also to navigate a difficult relationship with my daughter. Having worked through the book methodically, doing all the exercises, I felt so much better equipped to survive the horror of estrangement and eventually recover from it. ‘Done with the Crying’ is a must-read for loving parents rejected by their adult children – despite having worked hard at raising them as best they could, often in difficult circumstances.

What is especially shocking is that most abandoned parents featured in the book and participating in Sheri’s online forum provided their children with idyllic homes and exceptional support as youngsters – yet have lost not only the relationships they forged in love over decades (and entirely selflessly, in many cases), but also access to adored grandchildren. ‘Done with the Crying’ deals sensitively and pragmatically with all these issues. Never in our worst nightmares did any of us imagine this would be our lot in later life – but it can be survived and overcome. Sheri’s book holds the key.

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About Caryn

Hi. I'm Caryn, your Mid Life Guru -- an authentic and trusted mid-life voice sharing the wisdom I've gained in my first 50 years and adding to it new, relevant, and exciting information to get through the next 50.